This is an ongoing issue. For well over a decade, the GOP have been flogging the bogeyman of fraudulent voting, and then strained like crazy to find any examples of it. As I recall, the one or two examples they did find, were a small handful of votes, and - whoa, no way! - black people.

Not to be confused with the dozens of cases of white people doing "voter registration drives" and then tossing all the ones marked Democrat (which is not illegal, but is extremely unethical and immoral, because it's called lying), or making fraudulent registrations (which is illegal).

When really, the entire function of "voter ID" laws is really to stop "the wrong kind of people" from voting (like tens or hundreds of thousands of lawfully eligible voters blocked from their Constitutional right to vote).

This is true in daily life, as well as in social media. It becomes so easy to knee-jerk argue about everything, when often, there is no point, nor value, in arguing, and doing so just creates conflict where it serves no purpose and benefits no one.

(Just so we're clear, the meme is here because I'm calling it bullshit.)

Frankly, I took offense at the comparisons of Pres Bush to Hitler, and an allied country has found Pres Bush guilty of war crimes, so he's probably the closest any US President will ever come to being like Hitler.

Ergo. No surprise when I'm significantly more offended when the asswipes who screamed Pres Bush was the Second Coming of Christ have been screaming a thousand times louder than anyone before, that Pres Obama - who did not manufacture a war, who did finally bring Osama bin Laden to justice, and who did make it possible for tens of millions of Americans to finally get access to the privileged system of healthcare farce we have in America, is Hitler. The hypocrisy is staggering.

This meme is the icing on the cake by not only illogically, erroneously, callously and sloppily comparing an intelligent, educated and accomplished stateswoman to Hitler, but then does so by deliberately attacking what should be a common value that Jesus himself espoused - specifically this meme unambiguously derides common human decency - then yeah, I consider the authors to be pure, unadulterated scrum, and anyone who cheers this meme to be foolish at best, and a callous, selfish, ignorant sociopath at worst.﻿

I'm honored, though confused, why my post about D&D 5e has been so popular. I'm totally flattered, so won't question it too much. I'm thinking I hit just the right notes in my comparisons to other game systems that have come before and how things have evolved.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

GOP lawmakers are treating their jobs like a joke, taking your money to screw around, and they're laughing their asses off at you.

No, seriously. The people of America voted for these assholes to do a job, and they're fucking around posturing, dancing, and wasting time on theatrics instead of governing.

How many times has Rep Boehner and the House GOP voted on legally irrelevant, non-binding, merely posturing resolutions to repeal the Affordable Care Act that has enabled tens of millions of Americans to finally obtain health insurance (which is literally required in our broken health care system)?

Well over 70 posturing farcical legally irrelevant resolutions, last time I looked. How many taxpayer dollars are thrown down the toilet every time these jokers posture and hand wave in order to do this? The joke is on YOU, America, because these assholes are wasting your money by not doing any work.

If I screwed around at work like that, I'd get fired. No, actually if I wasted that much of my employer's money, I'd get fired, and then sued and probably go to jail.

It's a free pass to say "Hey, state employees, guess what? You don't actually have to do your jobs! You can fuck around on taxpayer time, just like us!"

The GOP are laughing at you. What are you going to do about it?

(Recommendation: Send them an email, or call them on the phone, and say "Quit treating your job like a joke. I hired you to govern, and I expect you to govern, instead of wasting time on empty theatrics, and I'm paying attention to what you're doing!")

These jokers take their money from billionaires, in order to service the billionaires at your expense, but ultimately they know that if the voters don't show up, then a billion dollars doesn't mean crap, so yeah, they actually do pay attention when enough peasants say "I'm really seeing that you are screwing around!")

Monday, April 20, 2015

Okay, totally a D&D song. Tell me you can't see every adventuring party ever in history singing this song at some point. Player characters get silly, they get rowdy, they get wonky.

I have mixed feelings about the classic sexism, but fuck it, it's all part of the joke. I do like the punchline that they've "civilized" the bastard at the end. (And, seriously, one of those "refined ladies" has a serious tattoo - you just know she's a reformed rogue or retired adventuring cleric hiding out in "civilized society.")

But, really, it's just got a good old D&D rumpus kind of sound and feel and absurd premise. It's like the classic Discworld Dwarf song "Gold! Gold! Gold!"

Friday, April 17, 2015

When the ZomPoc arrives, here is the order of priority of people to protect. Remember, the long-term goal is to save the human race, and the short-term goal is to keep the humans alive long enough to be saved. It’s a small, but vitally important distinction.

Farmers (society needs a foundation, and the canned peaches won't last forever);

All other Doctors (this is the PhD group, and variants on the lettering, e.g. JD [lawyers], since this group is your reliable source of knowledge and solutions, e.g. history and the lessons that can be salvaged from it, and it's going to be the biochemists, not the medical doctors, that find the cure to the ZomPoc);

Engineers, Artisans and Artists (you need engineers to design your fortifications and electrical power plants, artisans to actually build them, and artists to keep the people motivated and your oral history alive, since the paper is going to run out eventually, and unless your electrical engineers really have their shit together, you can totally forget about computers);

Everyone else (warriors like to think they are important, but they are important only in the small picture of the daily grind, since warriors alone won't keep the soul of society alive, won't rebuild the infrastructure, and won't find the cure, thus won't be the salvation of humanity, even as they die every day to make sure humanity lasts long enough to be salvaged).

Here is a basic question to ask yourself: “If there was no gasoline, and no electricity, what would I do to contribute to society?” If you've got no answer, then when the ZomPoc comes, some warrior is going to recruit you as cannon fodder, or some farmer is going to recruit you to plow, so you might want to bone up on your chemistry or carpentry, so you can get a job away from the front lines ;-)

Contrary to popular belief, the function of warriors is not to kill things, it is to keep people alive. This is often best served by killing the enemy, but warriors that lose focus get themselves killed, and fail in their primary function of defending others. Many people misunderstand this. True warriors serve the greater good, not esteem themselves as the greater good itself.

And just for the record, this came from a friend of mine. He blessed my reposting of it (understanding someone my steal it), but strangely insisted I leave his name off. People are funny ;-)

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Pray for the end of abortion, but understand there is a root cause that needs to be fixed before abortion will actually stop.

Making abortion illegal is like making it illegal to feed the homeless - it doesn't end homelessness, it just creates greater desperation.

So, making abortion illegal does not end unwanted pregnancy. Duh.

All the farcical "protect the unborn" bullshit laws don't end unwanted pregnancy, they just increase the burden of being pregnant, and turn what should be a joy into a liability and fear that some asshole will decide a miscarriage was a crime.

Work to make every pregnancy a wanted one: end rape, end incest, end abortion. This isn't rocket science.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

I am a student of human nature, from the amazing highs - like the altruism, compassion and heroism of the police and firefighters who rushed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 - to the despicable lows - like the serial killers who prey on peoples' bodies, and the ultra-selfish privilege seekers like Rush Limbaugh or former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani, who prey upon peoples 'minds, hearts and souls - for example, by exploiting the legacy of 9/11 to sow mindless fear and hatred - for themselves alone.

As a student of human nature, and human behavior, I have learned certain critical thinking skills, such as "Does that even fucking make sense?" And "How many persuasive weasel words are in that sentence, and was there any useful information despite the weasel words?"

Yes, I have a philosophical and political viewpoint, but I'm prepared to listen even to the lunatic fringe, because I can usually learn something, even if only "this person is a lunatic." (Although, usually I hope for something more, such as "We cherry-pick this one obscure Bible passage, because it has just the right words to validate our position, regardless of how this one passage might contradict several others, or if the meaning of the passage contradicts our use of the words themselves and by knowing this, you can crush our weak and foolish arguments.")

I don't think like normal people

I had to have someone actually say that to me, before it made sense. It's true, though.

You can't pigeon hole me, because I think (at all), I don't think like you, and I certainly don't think like the people you might try to lump me in with.

Oh, I might agree with certain views, or positions, or just statements, but that's still not the same thing. Hell, I probably agree with several things you think, which I find usually just confuses people who try to argue with me. Try to pigeon-hole me, and I'll point out at least three ways in which your assumptions are wrong, and bitch slap you for projecting your shit onto me, or dragging your own baggage into the conversation.

People piss me off.

I hate stupidity. I despise liars. I loathe selfish and evil people.

People fascinate me.

It is as a consequence of this observation that I end up, staunchly even, a particular political camp.

Of course, keep in mind that I'm also dissecting the shit out of everything they say, since jumping blindly away from one group is at least as dumb as jumping blindly into another group.

I'm a LibDem, and unashamed.

Yes, yes, the LibDems definitely have shittards, and fuckwads, and dimwits, racists and doorbells, and assholes and even a$hole$, since such creatures are endemic to any group of people larger than a handful.

But - and this is important - despite what Teaturds and Neo-Cons like to claim - there is not parity of swine between the two groups. There is not even parity of Stupidity between the two groups.

In the bipolar politics of the US, there are conservatives and liberals, and the truth of the matter is that the "conservative" team (really, the right-wing, since real conservatives are very nearly liberals these days, keep reading) has the far greater percentage of narrow-minded, pig-headed, selfish, bigoted, greedy, offensive and insulting, ignorant and petty, turds. (The right-wing leaders have actually cultivated this position, forcing the "faithful" to be ever more narrow-minded or be ostracized as "unfaithful" - this is how you get a 21st century political party that has sainted a former president whom today would be chucked from the party for being a closet liberal.)

Follow any thread with both right-wingers and left-wingers, and take yourself out of your own politics. Simply count the number of insults, the vitriol of those insults, and see which side has more. Count the number of sweeping statements without any effort at support and see who has more. Count the number of statements easily smashed by a simple Google search and see who has more. Count the number of "Yeah, well, I don't have to defend my position, because blah, blah, blah about your side" (called "deflection," or simply "smoke and mirrors"). Measure the sheer vapid and baseless arrogance of the insults.

Statistically speaking, over a thousand conversations, the right-wingers lose every time. More weasel words, more deflection, more - and uglier - insults, and almost invariably when a right-winger storms out of a conversation it looks something like a child's temper tantrum of "I'm taking my ball and going home!"

Note again, there are level-headed people who call themselves conservative, and most of these are really decent human beings. I really like having conversations with these people, because I can learn a lot from them. Often, we disagree, but that's part of being human. Only children feel a need to "win" every conversation. Dialogue and discourse - despite the screaming of Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh - is not about "winning," it's about information exchange.

Real adults try to avoid conflict while exchanging information in discussion, while children try to "win" every time, often picking fights that never need to happen. It's really quite stupid. (Let me repeat: the left-wingers have plenty of tantrum-throwers, too.)

(In contrast, Vice-President Cheney is fairly sane, but also a selfish sack of shit willing to throw Americans under the long-term terrorist bus for his own short-term benefit).

On the right - as a general rule - I see cognitive dissonance in "We want a small government, that does not interfere with our lives, does not tax nor regulate business, does not tax nor regulate the rich and powerful, but does provide us with safety, roads, drug-testing and imprisonment for the poor, and tells a woman what she can do with her body in-the-name-of-MY-god-you-sick-heathen-thankyouverymuch." I see "spend and spend, and who cares about income" neo-cons screaming and hand-waving about the "tax and spend" liberals (again, called "deflection").

On the left - as as general rule - I see recognition that the function of a representative government is to ensure that everyone has an equal chance to become filthy rich, that everyone has safe streets to live on, that rich and poor alike benefit from a well-educated populace, that taxes must be collected to pay for things, because a balanced checkbook is a good thing, people who understand an unregulated free market led to the Great Depression, and led to the post-Reagan recession, and to the post-Bush recession (both of them, actually).

So, yeah, I look at which group has a clue about how the puzzle pieces fit together, and which group throws tantrums when they don't.

I am a Liberal, because - as a statistical mass - Liberals have more compassion, and have their heads screwed on better. If this ever changes, then - like a good liberal - I will change, too.

Now, just in case you thought I was being unfair about the sad, pathetic, low-life, vitriolic, dirtbag, childish, slimy positions of "right-wingers," I'll let their own memes embarrass them.

Monday, April 13, 2015

It is human nature to enjoy feedback - we're hardwired that way. We like positive feedback, but in the absence of positive feedback, we'll wallow in negative feedback - simply because it's feedback (in which case it's a cross-purpose, since the animal brain wags its tail at all feedback, but the human ego can be crushed by negative feedback).

One of the fun ways to torture myself (and I understand I'm not alone in this) is by looking at the Google stats for my blog.

The Google people are all about data collection (it's a search engine, after all), so they've got piles and piles of stat data.

Thank you for helping make this blog a fun ride!!

I'm a lucky lady, in that the feedback I get is very positive, including the accelerating success of Being Seen.

view count

days
(delta)

days (total)

views per day
during the period

posts (delta)

posts (total)

views per post (total average)

1000

94

94

10.6

85

85

11.8

2000

72

166

13.9

52

137

14.6

3000

34

200

29.4

28

165

18.2

4000

21

221

47.6

16

181

22.1

I used the super-handy tool at Tables Generator to make the HTML for this page, after I mocked it up on Excel. (Normally, I prefer Google Sheets or OpenOffice Calc to Microsoft Excel, but in this one instance, I blasphemed and used Excel.)

If I really knew how to use Excel (or any spreadsheet), then I could put all this into a pretty graph showing this crazy steep curve that any skater would love to do stunts on.

I have a suspicion this kind of growth is unsustainable for a small blogger like me, but OTOH, this is the Interweb where hitting a tipping point can result in instant popularity.

Thank you for helping make this blog a fun ride!!

How many years of our lives do we piss away? Frivolously watching YouTube, or fighting with strangers for no reason?

Time wasted for no purpose other than to survive the moment until something better comes along?

What legacy will we leave? Will anyone remember? Will the world be a better place? Which is better, fame or infamy?

In one of the "Dune" novels, there was a Sword Master - Whitmore Bludd - who arranged the bloody massacre at Paul Atreides' wedding - his name was to have been forgotten, so he arranged to be remembered forever in infamy. Pride makes us do stupid shit, at least as stupid as envy, lust, gluttony and simple bone-headed foolishness.

So, who isn't pissing every night away? Young and foolish, or old and prideful? What do we value? What dreams do we chase? What do we do to achieve those dreams?

I think this blog shall be part of my legacy - not so much the writing itself, but the goal of getting people to use their fucking brains. Ripples on the pond. I touch you, you touch others, and perhaps the world changes just a little bit for the better.

I don't know. Maybe I just need a lager drink to drown the maudlin thoughts.

is it sexist to do a side-by-side comparison of the Hillary "H" to the Obama "O"?

No, asshole, it's not offensive to compare them side-by-side, but the result is offensive - and you know it, dipshit, so don't pretend otherwise - because it is sexist, it is irrelevant to anything, and see all the reasons above. Sad, Greg Pollowitz, just sad. I bet your mom is really proud of what a piece of work you've grown up to be.

Friday, April 10, 2015

Finished works might be found by their audience, but unfinished works never are.﻿

Or, put another way, "Just finish the damn book."

I think I made up the first one, but maybe not. The second one was by Cherry Adair, an accomplished novelist, whom I saw at a discussion panel hosted by the Pierce County Library staff several years ago. That one simple phrase really stuck with me. (Made a point to write down her name, and then go find my notes to include it here; very rude disservice to quote her without credit.)

The point here is that if you are an artist - written or otherwise - then at some point you owe it to yourself, and everyone who stood by you while you created the art, to SHARE it with the world.

Even if your artistic soul never feels it's "my best work," you're screwing yourself and everyone by hiding it.

If you're never going to "finish" it, then at least release it so people can see it.

Hell, some of the best Hollywood blockbusters started off as good ideas in bad clothing that someone else finished or polished and became wonderful art.

But, of course, the best thing to do is to finish it yourself. Put a shine on it, tidy up the loose ends, call it your own, and send into the world.

There is an audience out there that wants to experience what you have created. Don't be a selfish tit and sit on it. Give us your finished artwork, and let us enjoy it.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

I've never played a Bard but always wanted to: I'm always talked out of it by the other players who have never yet actually explained why I can't play a Bard, just been pains about it ("oh, a Bard's really a fifth character and there's only four of us" "I think a Bard would draw too much attention/isn't hard-hitting enough/some other stupid reason that turns out to be wrong because we actually need someone who can talk and has knowledge").

Part of what appeals to me is that I'm not much good at fast-talking, am not especially eloquent and can freeze up in a lot of the circumstances where Bards excel, so it's wish-fulfillment for me. And practice/training.﻿
Read more

Icarus Anne Riley replied:

+Fern Kali​ - I've found most players like action and specialization. Specialization allows some really spectacular stunts, and also prevents overlap between roles. By that, I mean if I'm playing the healer, and no one else can do healing, then no one else will steal my thunder or dramatic moments of healing.

Bards are such a mashup of so many things, they can easily blur into the territory of other players, ruffling feathers.

The specialization of bards is non-combat related, and so they can be mediocre in fights, which can leave the specialists feeling (right or wrong) like they have to protect the bard and compensate for the bard.

I've found bards work best to "buff" the other characters - use the morale boosting class features, use the attribute boosting spells, be the secondary healer, have a bunch of skills and use Aid Another, etc. It can be hard on the ego to lack specialization, but can also be very funny when your character isn't around helping make everyone look good, and people start to realize they've become dependent on said aid :)

Basically, bards, as with any character - figure out the character you want to play, and strike the balance of that against any holes or weak spots in the party lineup. ﻿

As far as diplomacy and epic singing - that really only works if you have a GM and other players who can enjoy that kind of side-story stuff.

It's amazing how distracting a musical event in the park can be, forcing the city watch to muster around the mob, instead of maintaining their normal patrols thru the business district :)﻿

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

So, like most people who weren't there, I grew up hearing the old saw that President Reagan "scared the Iranians and got the hostages released where President Carter had failed."

Funny thing, when you study the timing of it - turns out President Reagan had jack shit to do with getting the hostages released. After 444 days (about 15 months, or 1-1/4 years) in captivity, they're released before the "you are now President" ink dries - meaning just hours after he took the oath of office? Yeah. History - and lying assholes - has played games with giving President Reagan credit for something he had nothing to do with.

Sorry, but 35 years of President Reagan getting credit for something he could not possibly have had any significant impact on makes the "conspiracy theory" of promising the Iranians "When I'm President, I'll make sure you get all kinds of weapons, if only you hold onto those hostages a few more weeks, so I can get all the credit for setting them free!" suddenly sound a whole lot more plausible.

(Okay, yes the release of hostages in 1981 and the later illegal sale of arms to Iran five years later were likely unrelated, except possibly in the context that there may already have been an existing relationship between unethical people. I don't know. I'm sure real historians have already dug around, and that's beyond the scope of this rant.)

Just to come back around - the point of this rant is make sure the truth about the Iranian hostages gets out - President Carter got them freed, NOT President Reagan - over a year of negotiations doesn't suddenly end within hours of a new guy taking office, bullshit if he's the "world's biggest cowboy."

Monday, April 6, 2015

From Wikipedia:Although Gregorian chant supplanted or marginalized the other indigenous plainchant traditions of the Christian West to become the official music of the Christian liturgy, Ambrosian chant still continues in use in Milan, and there are musicologists exploring both that and the Mozarabic chant of Christian Spain.
I find that highly amusing, since normally the only displacement of indigenous anything is in the context of things like African bees displacing local quiet bees, or kudzu overrunning the Southern United States and shit like that.

Friday, April 3, 2015

It has long been my contention, that people like Limbaugh or O'Reilly, have served a purpose of reprogramming the American people, both as originally said, but also to alter our concepts of right and wrong, of discourse and disagreement, and our perceptions of self.

These vile windbags make the persuasive argument daily that to "discuss" things means you are weak: winners only destroy and never compromise. They laud character assassination and insults as appropriate forms of communication for adults, rather than only for children.

The destruction of language, with words constantly being invented from nothing, and redefined on a whim to confuse, muddle and enrage, was foreseen by Orwell, and the men who hold the leashes of - and write the scripts for - Limbaugh and O'Reilly learned those lessons well.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

A good vocabulary is sexy, and has been proven to be an effective way to advance your career. An educated mind is beautiful and alluring.

Okay, fine, so it is totally lazy to just post a meme without value-added commentary, but sometimes I get tired, and sometimes the meme is just so self-explanatory it doesn't need any extra commentary.

And it's April 1st.

If I think of something pithy - like "Reading Is Power!" - then I'll come back.